The Plagiarism Advisory Service

Abstract

The issue of plagiarism in education has existed for many years, however, advances in technology resulting in easy access to a multitude of information sources has reduced the effort required to incorporate the work of others into an essay or report. A Plagiarism Advisory Service has been established to provide advice and guidance on all aspects of plagiarism prevention and detection. This article presents the background to the Advisory Service and the associated electronic Plagiarism Detection Service. The nature and operation of the detection software is such that it should always be viewed as an additional element of any plagiarism prevention strategy. Future plans for the Advisory Service include the development of tools aimed at improving students referencing and citation practice and encouraging academics to audit their own assessment practice.